Black Christmas (2006)

     'Tis the season to be jolly...and get your shit wrecked. Black Christmas is one of many remakes available in Hollywood these days; the original being a Canadian film released in 1974. What's interesting about this film is that the plot is a mash-up of When A Stranger Calls (1979) and Halloween (1978) and then set to a very Christmas atmosphere. It's standard, really, a sorority house full of attractive women getting disturbing phone calls from an anonymous male during a raging blizzard. Then people start dying, all set to blinking red and green lights and jingles about sugar plumb fairies. Personally, I enjoyed the original film a little bit more than this version, but that doesn't make Black Christmas anything less than a bit above average.

     There are a lot of familiar faces present in Black Christmas. Firstly, Melissa, who is one of the main characters, is played by Michelle Trachtenberg who is most known for her Buffy The Vampire Slayer fame...or The Adventures of Pete and Pete, if you want to go old school. Katie Cassidy and Crystal Lowe also have large parts in this film. Both women are racking up multiple roles in horror films - Katie in When A Stranger Calls (2006) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), and Crystal in Final Destination 3 (2006) and Wrong Turn 2 (2007) - and they are on the fast track to becoming modern Scream Queens. Mary Beth Winstead and Lacey Chabert have multiple credits of their own, but their characters were lacking likability so I chose not to go into detail on them. Interesting note: Andrea Martin, who plays the housemother, was actually one of the sorority girls in the original version. That fact was striking enough to me that I felt the need to throw it in here.

     The production values of this movie were great. I can't remember one point in the movie where I thought "Why did they use that shot?" "Why is the music so high/low?" No critiques there. The script was great as well. They really covered their ass giving clarity to the subplots, not only through dialog but through flashbacks. Combining the great script with seasoned actresses created some character development which actually made me begin to care about most of the characters. I have to say that Lauren (played by Crystal Lowe) and Leigh (played by Kristen Cloke) were my two favorite characters. My only real problem with the movie is the some-what silly ending, but I'll explain that more now.

     Some of the characters in Black Christmas are desperately lacking common sense. In one scene, the surviving characters are throwing out ideas on how to survive...when the oldest one decides it is best for them to split up. I'm not talking about splitting up, I'm talking about peacing out all together. Her idea is that she and one of her sorority charges leave and essentially strand four of the other girls in the house while they drive to get help. And the ending...just...It was good, but you can split the ending into two parts. Part 1 of ending = good. Part 2 of ending = bad. So, from now on I may just turn the film off once it passes the first part of the ending. With all things considered, only hating the ridiculousness of lacking common sense in Black Christmas is not the worst thing in the world.

     The most surprising part of this film is its low box office numbers. Technically, it would be considered a success based on the fact that it's budget was only $9,000,000. However, as a film major, I know that the real budget of a film is what they tell you X 3. The X 3 being responsible for promotion. In reality, the budget for Black Christmas was roughly $27,000,000. As of December 2010, Black Christmas has only grossed about $22,000,000. While it wasn't a complete loss, it didn't recoup its real budget. Since it had a lot of top-notch actresses, I'm genuinely surprised that it performed so poorly. Maybe because it was released on Christmas? Who knows...

     In conclusion, Black Christmas was a fun movie. It's great to watch late at night with your friends, whether you have some beers or not. I would recommend watching it around Christmas, obviously, but if you're ever in the mood for silly holiday horror, then throw this in your DVD player.

MGD Rating: 7/10